Many stories find their beginnings in tragedy and misery, but not that of Archmagus Solomon of the Belfry. It doesn’t even find its origins in stories of chosen ones or prophecies. None of that. Solomon was Solomon for the longest time. He received an invitation to become a cleric soon after he reached the age of education. His parents, coming from a long legacy of merchants and traders, accepted with joy. Having one of your younger children enter the life of the clerics was something all noble or rich families wanted to pursue and receiving the invitation rather than filing a request was something even more extraordinary.

And so Solomon left his family and went to the Belfry, the largest building in the city. Towering over all the houses, shops, farms, workshops and even the parliament house, the Belfry was the centre of the city. Solomon buckled down and saw his education as a chance to grow as a person, to be a useful addition to the clerical class. He didn’t use his position to find himself in rivalries, power grabs or other petty stuff but pursued the highest of the educational possibilities.

With his age of adulthood rapidly getting closer, it was clear he would receive his orange hip scarf. Hip scarfs were the symbol of the clergy in the city, and the orange one was the most revered. Other colours stood for different wards of the city, with each of them referencing a certain church or district house where the clergymen were stationed. The orange scarf however, was the symbol of the Belfry itself. And as he reached his adulthood, his graduation with an exceptional record was finalised by rewarding him with the orange scarf he had dreamt off for the longest time.

One would assume tragedy would strike there and then, to really gift the writers with a good story but alas, the story of Solomon would still be calm, happy and joyous for another twenty years. But deep in the background of the grand stories that are told about that time, there can be a different story, the story of the Cult. No one really knows how and when they came to be, but their influence festered and grew underground for many years until finally they came out of the shadows as a well organised organisation. They weren’t vying for the traditional places of power, no parliament, council or kingdom was targeted but instead the Cult revered another set of Gods.

Their pantheon was called the Nameless, giving way to a myriad of beings all esoterically referenced as “the Void”, “the Merchant” or “the Giver”. They didn’t believe in institutionally organised religions, instead giving way for believing and revering Gods the way the people themselves want to. Solomon kept a close eye on their progress through the cities in the vicinity and he felt sympathy for their ideas. It was only after a few years that the horrific truth became known to him.Their doctrine of revering as you want basically meant that in the shadows they were pulling the strings and influencing people to start hunting people that didn’t participate because “the Void” demanded sacrifices or burning clergymen on the stake because they held to their own religions.

He realized the mistake the clergy had made by not intervening in the rise of the Cult and feared it was too late to take up the traditional ways of dealing with heretics. During that time, Solomon had worked himself up to the position of Grand Cleric of the Belfry, the highest position anyone of the clergymen could hold in their lifetime. And thus the rise of the Cult and the effects it had on the stability of the region befell Solomon to handle. He assembled the best and brightest, the clergymen specialised in the history of the order and the Belfry to find a possible solution to their problem. As the clergymen traveled to the Belfry, alarming messages arrived before them.It seemed that the Cult was rising in the city itself, and was planning on overthrowing the Belfry in a matter of days.

And thus Solomon sent out the alarm signal to any clergymen. They were supposed to hide anyway they could, to take off their sacred hip scarfs and go to their families. He himself had other plans, he took his beloved companion animal, a bullfrog and a tome from his shelf, one containing the greatest secret of the religious order and escaped the Belfry out of a secret tunnel in his room.

As he left the city, he saw the Belfry burning and eventually crashing down upon the city. His order was no more. He opened the book he took with him and found the map he hid there. Half a day’s travel away, there was a cave, carved by the people preceding the order and harbouring a mystical item. The Belfry wasn’t founded based on the principles of rigorous study and revering of the Gods. It was founded in magic, by people harnessing massive amounts of power and regular people seeing the wonders they did as a sign from the Gods. During the years, the clergymen of the Belfry had given up on their arcane practices but the mystery around the powers of the Gods remained, giving them the influence to become the juggernaut in the daily life of the people like they had been for centuries.

But now, it was time to once more pick up the ancient artifacts, and raise them against the Cult and their false Gods. And thus Solomon traveled to the cave, opened the seals hiding it from the world and found the last resting place of the founders of the Belfry. In their middle stood a shrine, and within that shrine they had placed the most powerful weapon they crafted. Solomon took the item and found himself being overwhelmed by the ancient powers of the Orb Staff. From that day forward, he wasn’t just Solomon, he wasn’t Grand Cleric of the Belfry Solomon anymore, from that day forward he would be known as Archmagus Solomon of the Belfry.

Entered by: 0xeB77…5659 and preserved on chain (see transaction)